Strategist, entrepreneur and commentator Craig Coogan examines issues with his unique perspective. NOTE: The views expressed in this blog are of the author (Craig Coogan) alone. They do not represent any organization, client, or business that he may be associated with. You are welcome to comment below. Thank you for reading!

Thursday, September 25, 2014

All Roosevelt All the Time

My 87-year swimming buddy at the gym asked if I had seen the
Ken Burns docu-series on The Roosevelts.
I replied – “What’s the rush? I know how it turns out.” To keep up with him, I
binged watched it over the weekend. 14 hours in essentially one sitting. The
story telling and subject matter is compelling – and Burns uses an A-list cast
of voice talent that adds texture and life to their words. The photographs and
archive footage are great, though some images were repeated liberally. I’ve produced
a few documentaries myself, and been honored with some awards, so I definitely
appreciate the skill and nuance that went into the opus. I know the series was
good because days later I’m still completely agitated by the damage to the
United States that FDR inflicted during his reign.

The United States Government role from its founding until
the New Deal was nominal in the direct lives of Americans. FDR empowered and
directed that the Government have a hand in people’s day to day lives in a very
active way. Such action was justified by the Great Depression and has continued
and expanded.

When President Roosevelt swept into office he pushed
through a series of legislation that aggressively put the Federal Government in
a position of providing for its citizens. Work programs, food programs, housing
programs, etc. were all started. The country was in despair – nearly a third of
adults were unemployed, millions hungry, being thrown out of their houses. FDR
was able to get the country to work as a collective for the first time in its
history, and it worked. All of those programs were then found to be
unconstitutional, so FDR tried to restructure the Supreme Court.

When the programs stalled and panic began to set in
again, Roosevelt pivoted towards another variation of the same idea. The U.S. had
been adamantly isolationist. There was Wilson’s World War I which was highly
unpopular and afterwards the feeling from the country was even stronger: no
more war. So much so that Congress prevented the President from selling
equipment to allies unless they were prepaid. When the British couldn’t pay,
FDR “loaned” them the planes and boats anyway.

Roosevelt was the John McCain of his time. He may not
have been as much of a warmonger as the Arizona senator, but FDR loved the
military industrial complex. It took him several years of warnings and threats
and scare tactics, but he got the U.S. into World War II. He ignored
intelligence warnings about attacks on the U.S.. For the man who came to office
proclaiming “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” he certainly mastered
cornering the American population into a war it didn’t seek and didn’t want.
Once at war the collective came together and succeeded.

FDR was elected four times – less a testament to his political
strength and more an example that the media abdicated its responsibility. Much
was made in the documentary (as in all coverage of him) about his polio and
physical ailments. The most striking (and galling) information was that he was
re-elected in the midst of war lying about his health, with his doctor
confirming it. He knew he was dying and the country had a right to know. The
media knew he disappeared from Washington for months, lost weight and accepted
the reports of him being in good health. The result of this omission was that Vice
President Truman became President, learned about the nuclear bomb after taking
office and then used it. He then started his own war in Korea.

What Truman did militarily has continued on – the U.S. is
now an interventionist in global affairs thanks to FDR. His token attempt at
preventing war, the U.N., should have a role in those affairs but never had the
authority from its member countries to do so.

Economically and socially the collective gains that were
made to stabilize the economy worked for a time. The problems happened when
those gains became the baseline expectations, otherwise known as an
entitlement. Social Security is a perfect example. Instituted to help older
employees get off of the work rolls so that younger members of society working
in post-Depression America, it was designed to cover minimum living expenses
for the final 3 to 4 years of life. It was a cost-effective way to energize
employment that never envisioned what to do 20, 30, 100 years later. Today that
program now funds people for 25 to 30 years – a level that it was never
intended to and never designed to or funded for. Congress and Presidents have been unable to make
changes. Whenever a change has been proposed – to increase the age at which
people might be eligible, or increase the contributions that people have to
make to fund the program or otherwise decrease benefits, there’s a huge hue and
cry. The collective is not willing to contribute as they once were because the
greater good is no longer the goal, it is an expectation, a given. Entitlements
now consume 2/3rds of the U.S. budget.

It proves that the concept of the collective is good, and
in certain instances has worked, but in the long run doesn’t. Today’s political
fights of the role of Government aren’t nearly as draconian as the rhetoric
would have one believe. The Republicans want to take money from the public and
spend it one way, the Democrats want to take money from the public and spend it
another way. There’s some differences in how much is to be taken and where it
would be spent but the underlying philosophy is the same: it’s All Roosevelt
All the Time. Talk about a binge.